The climate crisis fills us with feelings of despair, anger and sadness. We wanted to turn these feelings into art in a way that feels hopeful and not apocalyptic. How could we as artist make a significant/meaningful contribution to the climate discussion.In the autumn of 2014, we organized preliminary workshops where we experimented with different materials related to climate and sustainable development. By experimenting with plastic, we arrived at an interesting sonic landscape, a timbre reflecting the artificial and man-made reality we live in.

Sustain came to life through a number of workshops where the musicians, composers and the artistic team researched sounds and built new instruments. It is not easy to make plastic sing, and sound designer Thorolf Thuestad’s contribution to the performance is significant. We find over 50 microphones on stage, capturing the delicate, fragile sounds from our plastic instruments. The costumes are also made from plastic, the most prominent being Bodil's dress made out of plastic bags glued together.

We have been on the lookout for garbage and recycled plastics at our shores and beaches, at construction sites, in stores and in our own homes. We then constructed our scenography from these materials, on which the musicians can also play. The process of creating Sustainand meeting our audience has been interesting, educational and fun. We hope we have brought new hopes, thoughts and feelings into the climate debate.​The photos below are from the process of making Sustain and from performances where we have played excerpts from Sustain.More from the process on out facebookpage and #sustainbergen on instagram.​